Counter-Strike

Dreamhack, ESL, eStars Seoul and the ESWC, the organisers of Counter-Strike's main international tournaments, have all announced that they will be adding de_mirage and de_forge to their map pools in an attempt to liven up the Counter-Strike scene.

de_mirage, a remake of de_strike, was already featured in Dreamhack's map pool before the announcement and has been used in Dreamhack events throughout 2011 to great success. de_forge on the other hand has never had huge international success with the map being mainly used in the American scene back in 2006, however with the four major event organisers now supporting the map, all that could change.

Bellow are the official statements released by the event organisers:

Camille Versteeg, ESWC's Head of Competitions:

"For years we have been seeing the same Counter-Strike 1.6 maps over and over again. In the past it was impossible to add a single map because teams would not train them if only one event would use it during the tournament. Now with this initiative we hope that teams are able to practice and play some new maps. I personally hope that other organizations out there are willing to follow our initiative."

Alexander Nehr, Tournament Director of CS.16 for ESL:

"Today we would like to announce our new Counter-Strike 1.6 mappool for the Intel Extreme Masters 2011/2012 season. We are really happy that we don’t do this step alone but in cooperation with ESWC, DreamHack and eStars Seoul. With the help of several professional teams we all together agreed on this new mappool for our upcoming tournaments and I hope that there will be some more cooperations in the future. We are all competitors but we still need to work together to help our beloved eSports."

Tomas Hermansson, Dreamhack's Head of eSports:

"Counter-Strike 1.6 is still the most popular game at DreamHack festivals, qualifiers and events. Last year we started to use de_mirage to give the DreamHack tournament some extra flavour – now we’re very proud to team up with ESWC, ESL and eStars Seoul to announce the official map pool for the upcoming DreamHack MSI Beat IT Championship at DreamHack Winter 2011. This kind of co-operation is important for the future growth of eSports."